Introduction to Open Standards
Introduction to Standards
In the early 18th century an English civil and mechanical
engineer, George Stephenson designed the first public
railway. He used a gauge of 4 feet and 8 and half inches.
An American Engineer named Walton W. Evans pursued
to find the measurement of Roman chariots and converted
to inches and found that they were 4 feet 9 inches this is
slightly more than the gauge. This was confirmed by
archaeologist later.
Over the years 4 feet 8 and half inches has become a
gauge standard in railways. From then on to this day it
has become a standard gauge for most railways across the
world.
Types of Standards
Broadly standards are classified into 2 types namely;
De facto standard
De jure Standard
De facto Standard
De facto in Latin it means, “in practice”, therefore,
this is a standard that has been widely accepted and
has a dominant position in the market. Mostly these
standards are empirical, meaning they are derived
from facts and also adopted early in the market.
system keyboard layout has remained the same from the
typewriters era. The typewriter keys were placed in specific
format to avoid adjacent keys jamming into each other.
De jure standard
De jure Standards are developed by standard bodies,
professional organisation or a consortium of companies
using well defined process. The standards developed under
this type will strongly abide by the following attributes;
Openness - Free participation
Process Transparency – Fair development process
Unbiased – It’s not biased to a particular vendor
Below are the few examples of ISO (International
standard Organisation) standard;
ISO 8124-1:2000 Safety aspects relating to
mechanical and physical properties
ISO 5775 international standard for the size of bicycle
tires and rims
Many a time’s De facto standards become de jure
standards, especially which have been in use for
longer period of time. For example railway gauges.
Open Standard
Open means, non-secretive. Which means it’s available
for public knowledge.
A standard is like a blueprint. It provides guidelines to
anyone who wants to follow the specification to build a
product.
Standards are developed to make things work as the
same way even though they are made by different
manufactures.
Open Standards are “publicly available documents
that contain implementable specifications”
(Wikipedia).
For example, when we buy a telephone we do not worry
about telephone plug and the jack because we are sure it
works.
All the telephones manufactured by different telephone
companies will have the same plug as a standard.
Telephone industries have a blueprint for jack and plug
which are mandatory and are followed by all the telephone
manufacturers.
No single vendor can change this standard.
The traffic signaling system is a example of Open
standard, the rules of the road, and bulb…etc. Virtue of
openness brings in interoperability and interchange-ability.
Attributes of Open Standard
Accessibility-Open Standard should be available for
everyone.
No Royalty Fee - No royalty charges to use the open
standard specification to build a product.
Unbiased - Not biased to a particular implementer
open standard is one that exercises openness in
development, openness in implementation, and
openness in use.
Openness in Development: Anyone can participate in
developing the Open standard and without regard to any
external influences like government, credentials etc.
There is no joining fee for the membership.
The procedure followed during the development will be
absolutely transparent. During the course of development
the entire document should be made available to public.
Openness in Implementation: Once the open standard
is developed with all the specification it should be made
available to all, including vendor and general public.
There is no fee for obtaining this specification.
Specification share should be same across all the seekers.
Openness in Use: To take the full advantage of
openness, the implementation should be interoperable
between multiple vendors.
This not only benefits users but also encourage
innovation. Due to the openness and availability across
multiple vendors users will have better service.
Closed Standard
Closed standards generally are not developed by
consortiums but mostly by single company.
The specifications for these standards are not open for
public viewing. As this is limited to single company, it
completely controls the development and maintenance
of the standard.
This leads to vendor lock-in. Sometimes when
customers want to adopt newer technologies they are
limited by the availability of that technology with the
vendor, even if it’s available it might cost him dearer.
Closed in Development: All the development process and
specification is not available for others to review and change.
As everything is veiled to the outside world, others will
never know if there are any deviation with procedure and
process followed.
A completely closed development process also has no
transparency, Meeting proceedings and intra-company
electronic discussions are not published and do not become
part of a public record.
Closed in Implementation: The closed developed product is
not available for others to implement. If it’s a intellectual
property then all the rights are reserved.
Due to closed specification other vendors cannot
incorporate or used the specification to develop a product
or use for subset of a product. This ceases interoperability.
Closed in Use: Customers are locked into a single
vendor and many a times they end up buying other
peripheral products from the same vendor.
Summary
To summarize this chapter, we saw types of standards and
their attributes. We also looked into open and closed standards
and their characteristics.
The below figure depicts the relationships between the
various standards. It should be noted that De facto standard
can be both Open and closed. However a De Jure standard
can only be Open.
Examples:
As described in the beginning of this chapter, the rail road
gauge and keyboard layout are classic examples of an Open –
De facto standard.
Microsoft word is one of the best known Closed – De facto
standard for word processors.
Power supplied to homes are regulated by local Government
and specifications are available for the implementers which is
an Open – De jure Standard.
A De jure standard is developed by groups and their
specifications are available for vendors to implement. This
cannot be a closed standard.
